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The Joys of animal husbandry...


jhn.holgate

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Was about to get out for a KAP session this arvo when this Border-Leicester Ram appears in my front yard.  Coffee will have to wait, so I puts on the gumboots and try and herd him back up the driveway where I assume he came from.  He started trotting back up the road - with me encouraging him - no problems, but then he decided, no, he wants to be with my ewes. Turns out this bloody ram must have been a hurdles champion.   Over the fence and into the ewes.  Poo.  I have three main paddocks and one small ram paddock with the ram and two black pet sheep in it.  In that paddock are my actual yards which we use for separating sheep and general handling needs.  So, I run around and lock my ram and two black pet sheep up, then call all the ewes up for a feed into the ram paddock.  The rogue ram comes along and I manage to get him into my yards by himself.  Excellent.  For about 20 seconds.  He looks at the railings and says 'hey, I can jump this and off he goes.  Hmmm... let's give it another try.  So after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, I get him back into the yards again.  Sproing!  Over the fence he goes.  Well then, that's not going to work.  So then I have to try and get all the ewes and their lambs out of my ram paddock and out into the main paddock and leave him in the ram paddock by himself....but with lots of room so hopefully he stays put.  By this time, the best part of two hours has past but finally I have him separated.  I know he can easily jump the fence if he tries, so I'll back off and give him room.  Now, where the heck did he come from?  Ring the neighbor at the back....nope.  Neighbor at the side....nope.  Neighbor down the road....nope  Neighbor WAY down the road....nope.  Anyone lost a ram?  Meanwhile, my poor pets and ram are locked in the yards while this rogue wonders around in their space.  He's got an ear tag and one of my neighbors has said he might be able to track down where the ram came from, so that will have to be my next step.  That's if he stays put.  All my sheep are fairly short and can't jump my yards or the fences.  But this mongrel can so I'm not even sure I can hold him.  So, that's what I did instead of kite aerial photography this afternoon.  Great. (heavy sarcasm).

Feeding_the_sheep_portrait.thumb.jpg.41f

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postscript.... Over the fence he went and ended up right back where we started the afternoon from.  So I open the front gate and let him out with my ewes - where he's been trying to get all along.  With a bit of luck, some of the neighbor's ewes will be more appealing then ours and he'll be over another fence and away.  Kim thought it would be a good idea to put a tracker on him to find out just how far he's travelling.  Perhaps he's just been wandering from paddock to paddock for years.......

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Thanks Spencer.  No luck yet, Norm.  He's out wandering around with our ewes who, fortunately, have just had lambs and can't be impregnated.  Hopefully, he'll get bored of that pretty quick and jump another fence into another neighbors property.  Sorta passing the buck.  It's a bit like trying to catch a kangaroo and expecting it to stay behind a 1m high fence.

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Tricia has a question,

We want pictorial evidence of this wandeing ram.

 

Kathleen,

My wife tells me a ram, and in a particular one with still his family jewels in tact, are not that good to eat as all the goodness goes into those dangly bits rather into the meat that ends up on your BBQ :) .

 

Edited by SoutherlyBuster
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Tricia has a question,

We want pictorial evidence of this wondeing ram.

 

Studio_window.thumb.jpg.c220881f0b83c6bf 

That was a 7ft high double glazed window.  The ram evidently did not like his own reflection.  I am not amused.

My wife tells me a ram, and in a particular one with still his family jewels in tact, are not that good to eat as all the goodness goes into those dangly bits rather into the meat that ends up on your BBQ :) .

 

This one's likely to end up on my bonfire. 

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Next EK BBQ - sheep on a spit

Ha ha. I can tell that you have never smelt a horny border-leicester ram.

 

After you have dressed the carcass, piddle on it and then cook it and it would taste better than a "working ram's" forequarter chop.

It's absolutely rank!!!!!!:bad:  The dogs love it though.

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Stray stock are stock still, very shortly after I have found them John.

You have great patience.

I never let them get a chance to spread disease or parasites around my farm.

Nothing worse than drenching a large mob only to find a week later a errant neighbours ram. I used to run 14,000 sheep.

Neighbours stray weaners always taste better anyway.:mosking:

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One of our neighbors breeds these type and white Suffolk rams.  Some of them are worth over $10,000 so I didn't want to be too rash.  I can't contain it and I'm certainly not going to try and grab it or tie it up so tomorrow morning, I'll call all the ewes up for a feed and I assume the ram will come up too, then I'll get the whole lot in the yards and get all the numbers on it's ear tag.  If I can't find out who it belongs to, or they can't get it and pick it up by tomorrow evening then it's going to come to a speedy end.  I do not like killing stuff anymore.  Even shooting foxes - I do, but it's a waste of a perfectly good animal.  Sure it's introduced and does a lot of damage, but then, we are not native to this country and you could argue that we've not exactly been sympathetic to the land either.  But that's a whole other blog entry.  I guess I'll have to see what happens tomorrow.

Clive, I've got too many visions of several recent news stories that have involved Easton to risk that as a possibility.

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John, you should be able to claim that on your insurance depending on your excess but if you find the owner you could claim it through their public liability insurance instead. Ask your insurance Company if they will waive your excess if you can find out who owns the ram and provide them with the contact details.

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Insurance co are sending out the glaziers this arvo to board up the window.  I'm trying to track down the owner via the stud tag in the ram's ear.  This is the culprit...

Rogue_Ram.thumb.jpg.5acb4664d8b7665b9c85

You can tell by his head that he likes bashing into things.  So far he's barged through 2 gates, got out of the sheep yards twice and hurdled about 4 fences.

His time is running out.

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After googling the info on the ram's ear tag, I found the stud he was born on.  Rang the stud, the owner contacted a local livestock agent in town.  The livestock agent contacted the bloke he dropped the rams (30 of 'em) off to.  That bloke rang me and also rang the bloke that he passed some of the rams on to.  Still with me?  And FINALLY, the owner rang me.  He's coming around tomorrow morning to collect his ram.  I haven't told him about the window.  Yet.  But I'll be hitting him up for our $500 excess or do the whole lot under his public liability insurance - assuming he has some.

The owner bought 5 of these rams.  He has new fences....and guess what?  His rams keep escaping.  Also, he's about 10km away - how many bloody paddocks did this ram go through?

Keep your finger's crossed that the ram is, in fact, still in my yards tomorrow morning.

Crosier Glass came out today and did a great job on cleaning up and boarding up the window.  The glass will take a week or two to make.

What a bloody saga!!  I'll tell you this much for nothing, if this ram ever turns up again, there will be NO phone calls made whatsoever.

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You went to a lot of trouble to spare the creature a quick end. 

I had someone I knew well do some excavation work for me, he prior to operating the excavator drove a large semi, one day he collected a bunch of horses on the road, they had obviously escaped, truck was written off, suddenly no one was interested in claiming the horses were theirs. Hopefully the owner has a better conscience than that.

Le us know how it goes.

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It was carted off the property, trussed up in the back of a trailer this morning.  Good Riddance!!!   Seems like the owner is willing to pay the excess on the insurance, so I'll send him a copy of my receipt and see if he comes good with a cheque.  I'm told it's not the first ram out of that bunch to go walkabout.  A previous ram wandered 10km away from where he was suppose to be.  Sheesh.

You went to a lot of trouble to spare the creature a quick end. 

Far too much trouble! 

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And here I was thinking Easton aluminium was some rhyming Aussie slang. A well targeted bullet would be more humane. Glad you got it all sorted out John. Some high tech launch devices for those Eastons, rather interesting.

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. A well targeted bullet would be more humane.

Not true, Norm.  A well sharpened and aimed broadhead can pass straight through a critter, which will give it a bit of a fright, and then it may well go back to eating.  Not realizing it's in any danger until it loses consciousness and falls over - I've read that a few times with deer who are very flighty.  I, however, am not that good a shot with a bow and would not attempt anything bigger than a fox.  You can imagine the reaction a sheep with arrows sticking out of it would get running around the neighborhood.  So your statement certainly does apply to me.

This has given me the biggest laugh of the week, thanks for sharing John :D 
 

I'm sure I'll look back on this and laugh....through gritted teeth.....sometime around 2047.

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You can imagine the reaction a sheep with arrows sticking out of it would get running around the neighborhood.

I'd imagine it would look a bit like this.... :D 

destroyed.thumb.jpg.ea5344bf1c3a0244690b

 

 

Edited by .Joel
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